American Country Music singer and writer Garland Perry “a.k.a. Hank” Cochran died last Thursday (July 15) due to pancreatic cancer, he was 74. In July of 2008, Hank underwent an operation to remove his cancerous tumors from his pancreas and lymph node then in April of this year he had a grapefruit sized aortic aneurysm removed.

Hank was born on August 2, 1935 during the time of The Great Depression. He was a sickly kid; he had pneumonia, whooping cough, mumps and measles at the age of 2. At the age of 9 he was living in an orphanage, he ran away twice from the orphanage then he was sent to live with his grandparents, it was during that time when he learned how to play the guitar his Uncle Otis was his mentor.

In 1960, at the age of 24 he moved to Nashville and wrote the song “I Fall to Pieces” with Harlan Howard, this song became a major hit when Patsy Cline sang it on November of that year, then on the following year he wrote “She’s Got You” and Patsy sang it again then in 1962 he wrote “Why Can’t He Be You.” Almost all of the songs he wrote reached the top spot in the Billboard Country Charts.

He was married five times; the last was in 1982 to Suzi.